Old Chinese Proverb

Confucius say: “If you are in a book store and cannot find the book for which you search, you are obviously in the…..

..

..

THE NEWS

Odd news from around the world

Germany castrates sex criminals: “Germany is rejecting demands from an EU body that it should stop surgically castrating sex criminals – a practice that dates back to the Nazis – because it is ‘degrading’. Defying Brussels, the German government said it intends to carry on with the practice citing low re-offending rates among sex criminals who had opted to have the procedure. It pointed out the results of a 1997 study that tracked the history of 104 sexual offenders ‘who subjected themselves to castration in the decade between 1970 and 1980. Their reoffending rate was three per cent,’ the German authorities explained, ‘as opposed to 46 per cent for a control group.’ The scheme is voluntary. Against the backdrop of such results, Germany is not thought likely to buckle under EU pressure anytime soon – particularly as the country’s worst child serial killer and rapist, due to be sentenced next week, has evoked strong public support for the policy. On average there have been five such castrations every year over the past decade.”

Tunneling thieves in Britain: “A group of robbers dubbed the ‘mole-in-the-wall gang’ is believed to have struck again and dug a third tunnel in a bid to steal a cashpoint machine. In the latest in a hat-trick of similar crimes, the gang dug down behind a railway station platform and burrowed underground towards an ATM on the wall of a corner shop. But they were foiled after the vibrations from their late-night digging triggered a security alarm at the East and West Convenience store near Burnage train station in Manchester. It is the third time that such an audacious attempt had been made on the outskirts of Manchester in the last five years, leading detectives to suspect it is the work of the same gang.”

Bungling British council spends £320,000 on cycle path – with tunnel that’s too low to ride under: “When a council spent £320,000 on a cycle path, it seemed like a large sum to take from the public purse. And taxpayers in Axminster were even more appalled when they learned the route includes a tunnel that is too low to ride through. The pricey 1km-long path built by the bungling authority passes under a main road and runs alongside the River Yarty in Devon. But one tunnel section is only 5ft 9ins tall – the height of the average British man. The perilous path has also been found to flood with a slimy mixture of mud, straw and slurry during heavy rainfall. Town councillor Paul Hayward said he was ‘staggered’ to learn that the route cost £320,000 after making a freedom of information request. ‘This is money thrown down the drain on some novelty project – it is not a practical route,’ he added. ‘You have to walk through two or three inches of mud.”

Strange parrot: “Pandas, white rhinos and mountain gorillas all have a hard time maintaining their own species through reproduction. But no creature is quite as incompetent as the kakapo. The chubby, land-bound parrot is so uninterested – and hopeless – at mating that the native New Zealanders now number just 124. Aside from female apathy to sex, the bungling male is unable to distinguish a suitable partner from an angry possum or other killers. And when faced with a threat, the dim-witted creature often forgets it can’t fly and routinely ends up falling flat on its face. Unfortunately for the kakapo, natural selection has contrived to make it difficult for them to breed. They often live until 90 and so had to keep their population down because they only eat one thing, the fruit of the rimu tree, which comes into season only once every four years. It is very friendly and will – if you’re lucky enough to spot one – come right up to you. Often, when alarmed, it has a habit of freezing and simply not moving. Other times it may run up into a tree as it is an excellent climber.

A fifth of flights from London Heathrow were delayed last year… and that’s an IMPROVEMENT: “More than one in five flights departing from Heathrow Airport were delayed last year, its owner BAA reported today. And 15 bags in every 1,000 went missing. But the airport operator said this was an improvement on 2010, when hundreds of aircraft were grounded and cancelled because of heavy snow and a volcanic ash cloud, leading to thousands of stranded passengers, and when 18 in every 1,000 bags got lost. BAA said that in 2011 some 21 per cent of flights left Heathrow 15 minutes or longer after their scheduled departure time. This compared to nearly a third (29 per cent) the previous year – when volcanic ash and severe winter weather meant the airport ‘lost’ 2.4million passengers. Heathrow bosses were criticised at the time for being unprepared and ordered by aviation watchdogs and the Government to improve their ‘resilience’ for this Winter. The delays came as Heathrow – Europe’s busiest airport and the third largest in the world – handled 69.4million passengers in 2011, smashing a four-year-old record.”